Posted Saturday at 8:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Saturday January 17th

Empower Field at Mile High, Denver, CO

Buffalo +105 over Denver

4:30 PM EST. There are plenty of people who love the Denver Broncos. There are also plenty who admire mountain views, craft beer, and the general idea of optimism. None of that changes what Denver actually is,  a weak team with a shiny record, a flattering narrative, and a résumé that folds the moment you apply pressure. At 14–3, the Broncos looked respectable on paper, but paper has never had to convert a third-and-eight or protect a lead against a competent quarterback.

Denver’s profile unravels quickly once you remove the gloss. They beat exactly four winning teams all season. One of Denver’s signature wins came against Philadelphia, a 21–17 result in which the Broncos were effectively lifeless for nearly three and a half quarters before catching a late break. They also escaped Houston 18–15 in a game they had no business winning, relying more on circumstance than control. Their season-ending victory over the Chargers loses all meaning given Los Angeles rested its entire core.

When you isolate Denver’s losses, the picture becomes clearer. They were beaten by Jacksonville, the Chargers earlier in the season, and Indianapolis, all games that exposed their inability to dictate play against competent opponents. Outside of those matchups, the schedule was padded with below-average competition that allowed Denver to survive without ever proving much of anything.

Even their wins against “respectable” teams required unlikely scripts. The December victory over Green Bay was another game where Denver looked finished for long stretches before benefiting from late-game breaks. When they finally faced Jacksonville in a matchup that was billed as a potential AFC Championship preview, reality arrived quickly. The Jaguars controlled that game from start to finish in a 34–20 win that wasn’t nearly as close as the score suggested.

That brings us to the quarterback comparison, which quietly decides this matchup. Bo Nix has been carefully packaged as a rising star, but the numbers tell a less flattering story. He was effective with a lead, average in close games, and nearly unplayable when trailing. Asking him to win from behind is like asking a GPS to work after you’ve driven into a lake. Not only did Nix suck when trailing, he also sucked at throwing downfield, throwing on the run, and throwing against the blitz. Good thing that you can win a Super Bowl without having to do any of those things well. When the NFL’s annual 100 top players thingie listed Nix at No. 64, the internet took a screengrab so that it could make fun of that ranking to the rest of the internet.Buffalo, on the other hand, brings a quarterback who thrives in chaos, punishes hesitation, and doesn’t need a perfect script to create points. 

Buffalo also happens to be the exact type of team Denver struggles with. The Bills don’t rely on gimmicks or short fields; they force you to defend the entire width and depth of the field. They pressure quarterbacks into mistakes, they convert red-zone opportunities, and they don’t panic when a game drifts off schedule. Denver’s defense can look excellent when everything is clean. Buffalo is very good at making things messy.

When you strip away the record, the hype, and the home-field altitude, this line becomes difficult to justify. Denver is being priced like a balanced contender when they’re closer to a well-organized placeholder. Buffalo is the better team, with the better quarterback, and far more ways to win a game that doesn’t go exactly as planned. Buffalo goes into Denver and wins, because the gap between these teams is real, even if the market is pretending otherwise.

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